Tag Archives: Gay wedding supplier directory

This very original shot was sent by the photographer Nelly Naylor. Last winter she did a magical Beauty and The Beast shoot with Tony and Emily.

On Saturday 16th December 2017, I created a fairytale adventure for one charming and very special couple. The photos were taken at Surprise View in the Sheffield Peak District as I felt it was very fitting for the couples miraculous Beauty and the Beast outfits. I also caught up with them to find out more about their adventures together so far and how they came to meet.

When did you meet and how long have you been together?

We met in 2012 during Comic Con in London, we’ve enjoyed five enchanting years together but have been engaged for two. Tony proposed last Christmas!

Think you can sort out music for your wedding with an iPad and Spotify? Our friends from RedLine DJs will give you 19 reasons you should re-think it and get yourself a real DJ.

Almost all soon-to-be-newlyweds have been there: you’ve been planning the wedding for months, if not years.
The cake’s been taste tested by the entire family, the dress has been fitted (three times), the canapés and wedding breakfast confirmed and your dad has already done the booze cruise to Calais (obviously you’ll have bought five times as much as you need, and will be drinking that bottle of ‘wedding day red’ until 2020). You’ve just about recovered from your stag or hen weekends, and virtually everything has been organised apart from one crucial thing: the music.

At this stage of the planning – with costs snowballing and budgets squeezed – one question is inevitable. Do you really need to spend money on a professional wedding DJ? We all know how to make a good party playlist on spotify, right?!

Wrong! Skimping on your dj is a fast-track to an empty dance floor, and here are some of the reasons why you should book a professional wedding dj.

Weddings are a special day and they require specialists

You want your wedding day to be perfect in every single way. It’s why you spend hours making sure your wedding breakfast menu is just right, rather than just asking your local chippy to supply some battered sausage and chips (nan would never approve).

Regardless of how much we love fish and chips, the point still stands – the best weddings are all about employing the best people to do each specialist job. Your DJ should be seen not just as the provider of music but also as your evening reception specialist – get the right one and your night will be one to remember, get the wrong one and it could be one to forget. After all, no-one wants an accidental YMCA as their first dance.

Professional DJs know how to build – and keep – a dancefloor

People like to think that being a DJ is easy. After all, isn’t it just playing good songs?! Not really. Everyone will have a story of a DJ that completely messed up that wedding, party, or club night.

DJing a wedding is a much harder job than it appears. But the best DJs are able to pull together all of your song and genre requests and mix them in with the inevitable requests from your guests. They are able to use their experience to add their own selections, successfully keep a broad cross-section of people happy for the entire night and most importantly, they know how to build a dance floor and keep them there ‘til the very last bars of New York, New York.

Professionals are invested in their own business, and you

The professional wedding DJ cares about their business – every single client is important to them because word-of-mouth both online and in person counts for everything. They are therefore highly motivated to provide a superior level of customer service and attention to detail to ensure that they are recommended and reviewed in glowing terms.

In the case of amateur DJs, the opposite is often true – you are likely to be dealing with someone without a business name, their own website and an online presence. With so little motivation for them to treat you with the care you deserve, do you trust them to handle something as important as your wedding day?

Photographer Larissa Joice shared this lovely wedding in a gorgeous Headington Hill Hall with us. She also asked Bev and Alex to tell us more about their bog day.

Tell us your story

We met through sport and mutual friends in Oxford. Alex proposed to me on a dog walk in South Park which is my favourite place in Oxford, and you can see it from where we eventually got married!
We were engaged for nearly 1.5 years and we’ve been together for nearly 7 years now. We had to wait a while to live together as Alex went back to Uni to do another degree, but we got there in the end! Once she got a job after uni we moved from Oxford to Birmingham, but went back to Oxford to get married!

Photographer Ross Willsher sent me his styled shoot that is full of juicy green and it made me think of spring, so thought it would be a great time to share it with you. Here’s what he wrote about it.

The shoot took place at Merrymeade House in Brentwood, Essex and was my own conception. I worked closely with Leanne (Perilly, MUA) and Danielle (Balcombe, EssexyHair) on the styling; we wanted something a little outside of the box without resorting to stereotypes (as a gay man myself, I am always looking into new ways of highlighting how wonderfully diverse same sex relationships and weddings can be).

We decided that by having two different looks for each bride, we could showcase how traditional wedding styles and more modern, alternative styling can both be embraced by same sex couples.

The majority of my shoots – both portraiture and weddings – incorporate nature and the “great outdoors” as not only does this enable me to work with a diverse and ever-changing backdrop, it helps the people in front of the camera to relax and be themselves.

Danielle from Essexyhair embraced this natural and organic vibe by giving the ladies a “festival bride” look. The make-up by Leanne is bold without being overpowering and reflects the strong personalities of both women. This really helped to bring out Helene and Skye’s natural chemistry and confidence in front of the lens. We had fun playing around with different poses and camera angles to change the look and dynamic between the two models and create a story and sense of narrative as opposed to simply a series of individual shoots that didn’t work together cohesively.

Something totally different today! Claire and Georgina got married in gorgeous Eltham Palace. Thanks to Jeff Oliver Photography team for sharing it with us.

HOW DID YOU MEET?

We both work in the food industry which is pretty small, you will always know someone that knows someone, and in fact Georgina was one of Claire’s customers. In our case Claire was working at a company producing sauces, dressings and chutney for both food manufacturing & retail businesses. Back in April 2009 Georgina joined the company and our eyes met over a chutney pan…. We had our first date within 10 days of meeting and the rest, as they say, is history.

After a few months of dating Claire moved to London for work in September 2009, but we stayed strong & Georgina followed in January 2010 when we moved in together.

By 2014 we had brought our first house in South East London & Georgina proposed in front of the Greenwich Royal Naval Collage in January 2015

This wedding makes me miss summer, sunshine, and green trees.. Oh how much would I give to be sitting by the lake now… Charlotte and Sharon had an amazing wedding with lots of sunshine and the gorgeous scenery of Loch Ard.

HOW DID YOU MEET?

Through a friend whilst on rugby tour at the Magaluf beach.

TELL US ABOUT THE DAY! WHAT WAS THE THEME, INSPIRATION, THE MOST IMPORTANT AND MOST FUN PART FOR YOU?

The main thing that we wanted from our wedding location was to get married by the water, whether that was on a beach or next to a loch. The second thing that we wanted was to be able to get married outside (British weather permitting). Charlie found Altskeith Country House while recovering from a broken ankle and it ticked all of the boxes and more for us. Firstly it was on the side of Loch Ard, secondly it had several stunning outside options to get married and thirdly it had the most stunning views across the loch with Ben Lomond in the background. When we went to view the house over the Christmas holidays in 2015 we knew instantly that it was where we wanted to get married. Charlie was grinning from ear to ear before we even got out of the car and saw the inside of the house. We were also very fortunate that the owners, Alison and Yas, were so welcoming and made us feel at ease straight away. They were so proud of the transformation they had made to the house and that they could share it with couples like us who wanted a dream location for their wedding day. The final bonus was that as the house was in Scotland we could legally get married outside if the weather was on our side on the day.

Hope you had a lovely Valentines Day!!! Now when you’re all full of love and chocolate, we wanted to share something really beautiful with you. Photographer Kirsty Mackenzie sent us this gorgeous shoot she shot, styled by Bow & Beau. The stylist tells us about the inspiration behind this shoot and wedding suppliers involved.

Our aim for the shoot was to bring in quirky and unconventional features to an otherwise relaxed, outdoorsy, woodland wedding setting: a cool whimsical shoot for the alternative bride. We also wanted to promote a same sex, quite relaxed and natural shoot.